


See Everything, Say Nothing

by notyouranswer (gorgeouschaos)



Series: The Pursuit of Complete Understanding [3]
Category: Welcome to Night Vale
Genre: Cecil is not human, Early in Canon, Gen, Pre-Slash, The Voice of Night Vale, Typical Night Vale Weirdness
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-07
Updated: 2020-01-05
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:07:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 2,324
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21707206
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gorgeouschaos/pseuds/notyouranswer
Summary: Night Vale falls in love with Carlos the Scientist almost instantly. The Voice of Night Vale does his best to keep Carlos and his Team of Scientists safe.(You might want to read the first two fics in the series first.)
Relationships: Carlos & Cecil Palmer, Carlos/Cecil Palmer, Carlos/Night Vale
Series: The Pursuit of Complete Understanding [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1562653
Comments: 21
Kudos: 252





	1. Red Flag Means Run

**Author's Note:**

> For reference, I’m kinda basing Night Vale/Cecil around the concept of the genius loci/Demonreach from the Dresden Files. Google defines a genius loci as the presiding spirit or god of a place. So.  
> Second chapter will be Cecil's POV on a Thin, Semantic Line.  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and feedback makes me happy :)

The Strangers come from the North. Real Strangers, not the strangers that live in the sewer systems beneath City Hall.

Cecil sees the cars first. They come into his field of sight the moment they pass into the town boundaries. There are two cars, one SUV and one truck. There are six humans, three in each one.

Cecil dismisses five of the humans as boring immediately. The man driving the truck, however… he is perfect in every way. His hair is perfect, his glasses are perfect, his off-key humming is perfect.

Cecil tells the people of Night Vale of the Strangers. He does not know why they are here, but he will soon.

Cecil knows everything that Night Vale does.

The Stranger with the Perfect Hair says his name is Carlos and he is a scientist. 

Carlos the Scientist smiles. Cecil falls in love instantly.

Night Vale accepts Carlos the Scientist as their town Scientist immediately. It reserves judgment on his Team.

Carlos and his Team of Scientists ask each other in whispers how Cecil knows everything about them. Cecil smiles into his coffee.

If they are truly Scientists then they’ll figure it out soon enough.

Night Vale takes it on itself to make Carlos the Scientist and his Team of Scientists welcome. Or, most of the Scientists anyway. The geologist tries too hard to convince a Librarian of the existence of mountains and she gets eaten. 

Cecil tells Night Vale that she was taken for reeducation and it becomes the truth. Even if Cecil hadn’t liked her that much, Carlos would have been more upset if he knew she was dead.

Cecil must not upset Carlos the Scientist.

The geologist did not belong in Night Vale, or to Night Vale. She belonged somewhere else, where the rules were rigid and life was safe. 

Carlos’ lab assistant forgets to prepare for the Butcher’s Church potluck. Night Vale didn’t like her either. She was only there for the money.

Carlos is sad, which makes Cecil sad too. Cecil makes sure to keep the weather extra nice for a few days.

Night Vale approves of the other Scientists. Cecil can’t give them any unfair advantages, of course, but Night Vale does tilt the odds in the Scientist’ favor where possible. 

Night Vale likes the Scientists, and especially Carlos. Carlos is obviously Night Vale’s favorite Scientist, but his Team-- the ones that make it through Night Vale’s original tests-- are special too.

Scientist Dr. Jessica is confused by Night Vale but accepts it as it is and tries to understand it gamely. She also forces Carlos to take care of himself with exasperation when Night Vale’s favorite Scientist gets caught up in his work.

Scientist James is delighted every time he discovers something he thought was impossible. He provides a measure of caution to counterbalance Carlos and Cecil appreciates that.

Scientist Aspen is happy about every new species they discover and makes Carlos laugh. They are tied for the place of Night Vale’s second favorite Scientist. 

People with scars often find peace in Night Vale. Aspen belongs there.

Night Vale’s other second favorite Scientist is Lab Assistant Alexis. She never says, so Cecil doesn’t know, but Night Vale suspects Alexis spent some time in Nulogorsk. The chokehold she uses to win the annual Most Likely to Survive Ultimate Fighting Championship was popularized there. Its inventor, one of the denizens of the Lament Configuration buried under the streets of Moscow, is an honorary citizen of Nulogorsk.

Night Vale likes Carlos’ Team of Scientists. They’re not Cecil’s favorites, though.

Cecil feels a little guilty about that.

When Treacherous Telly the Barber hurts Carlos’ Perfect Hair, Cecil harnesses Night Vale’s rage to make him disappear. Even when it results in Carlos becoming wary of him, Cecil doesn’t regret it.

No one hurts the Scientist. No one.

Cecil tells Night Vale of the tragic incident and the Scientist’s Lab is overwhelmed by condolence gifts. John Peterson-- you know, the Farmer?-- even sends some of his famous Imaginary Corn Pie. 

Cecil watches Carlos open the door to his lab. The gifts avalanche inside.

“What the hell,” Carlos says flatly.

“I think Night Vale liked your hair as it was,” Alexis calls. “Cecil said these are condolence gifts.”

Carlos runs his hand through his beautiful, tragically shorn Hair. Cecil thinks it looks just as attractive ruffled as combed, even if it doesn’t have the same flair thanks to Telly’s atrocious actions.

“What the hell,” Carlos repeats in a whisper. 

“Ooh, is that Imaginary Corn Pie?” Jessica asks, peering around Carlos. “I call dibs.”

Scientist Aspen is the first to figure out Cecil’s relationship to Night Vale. Or at least they’re the first to get an idea about it.

They tell Carlos.

“Is Cecil Night Vale?” Carlos asks Old Woman Josie.

Josie smiles and closes the door in Night Vale’s favorite Scientist’s face.

Cecil is proud of Carlos. He becomes concerned when Carlos drives out to the sand wastes and begins yelling at the sky. Usually, that’s a side effect of black market deradiation protein shakes. The member of the Sheriff’s Secret Police assigned to monitor that section of dunes asks if Carlos is okay and Carlos says yes, but he’s lying.

Cecil makes an emergency broadcast.

“Listeners, Carlos appears to be in considerable distress,” Cecil announces. 

This does not seem to comfort Carlos.

Weird Scout Flebjerberg saves Carlos and Scientist James from being eaten by one of the cars which Night Vale suspects are from the Nightside. 

“Thanks, Cecil,” Carlos says to Weird Scout Flebjerberg.

Cecil is flattered by the intent. Carlos doesn’t understand yet, but he will.

“You’re welcome, Carlos,” Cecil says at the end of his show.

Night Vale nudges the acid-spitting dragons headed for Scientist James-- he smells like uranium, which is very attractive to the acid-spitting reptiles of the desert-- until they sullenly shrink into foot-long lizards. 

Night Vale likes the Scientists. Cecil loves Carlos.

The Scientists are Night Vale’s, now. And the Voice of Night Vale will protect them.


	2. Chaotic Chain of Causation and Consequences

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *shrugs*

Night Vale’s History Week happens every year, but Cecil goes all out for this one. It’s Carlos’ first one, after all.

Cecil would never admit it to his favorite Scientist, but it’s possible that he uses the opportunity to warn Carlos. 

Cecil has been here since the moment the first microorganism came into his domain. He has been here since the first complex organisms developed, since the first underwater plants began to grow, since the first small fish began to swim above the abyssal ocean floor.

He was there in 4000 BC; he watched the first humans huddle together against the oppressive darkness and the strange shadows which lurked there. The settlers, the robbers, the immigrants and the locals and the Eldritch Abominations-- he watched as they all became part of Night Vale.

Cecil has always been here. Night Vale has always been here.

Failing a catastrophe of more than apocalyptic proportions, Night Vale will always be here. Cecil will always be here.

The Scientist is-- or was, originally-- human. He is, or was, mortal. 

Night Vale is endless and eternal. Night Vale has adopted Carlos as one of its own.

Cecil likes coffee, purple, and Carlos. He happens to be the Voice of Night Vale.

He isn’t sure how all of that fits together, just that it does. 

Cecil hopes Carlos gets all of that from his History Week announcements. 

For a radio host, Cecil can’t always put things into words.


	3. A Thin, Semantic Line

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Annnnnd that’s a wrap on this one!  
> Took me long enough. Sorry about that. I have a lot of ideas and little impulse control, which results in me jumping between approximately seventeen thousand WIPs at any given point in time.  
> I’m sure I’ll come back to this ‘verse-- it’s a lot of fun-- so stay tuned next for the sounds of notyouranswer muttering angrily at their keyboard.  
> … Which is their default state anyway...  
> Thanks for reading, hope you like it, and I live for feedback :)

Cecil watches the portal open into the PTA meeting with great excitement. The type of radioactivity that indicates a gap in the fabric of time had been hovering in the air for days. Cecil knew it would be a large gap from how strong the particles tasted.

He’s pleased to see that it is a portal to the past. Cecil had thought that the charged particles in the air had tasted more like raspberries than strawberries-- the future tastes like strawberry jam-- but he’s only right about half the time. 

Even his knowledge is scant when it comes to reality gaps.

Thirty-seven people die, but no one ever really dies in Night Vale. They just become part of the desert. 

Everything they were is already part of Cecil anyway. Cecil knows the secret of Susan Quakes’ perfect grilled cheese recipe, just as he knows the exact path to Juan Lopez’s Pet Sematary and where Stephen No-Last-Name’s mercury well is.

Cecil hears the Scientists call the event a tragedy. He smiles sadly. 

They don’t understand, yet.

Everything and everyone returns to the desert eventually.

Scientists Aspen and Carlos do take advantage of the portal to see a dinosaur. Sheriff Sam would have turned them away, but Cecil nudges their thoughts until Sam forgets that that was their intention.

Cecil is of the opinion that the Scientists should get to see dinosaur scales. Every child in Night Vale was given the opportunity to see a dinosaur and the Scientists were missing out.

Every Night Vale child was hurled into the Cretaceous Period at some point between the ages of seven and twelve. Admittedly, the program was mostly a disguise for mandatory vaccinations against prehistoric strains of Ebola and Malaria, but the children still had the chance to run for their lives while being chased by dinosaurs.

Besides, Scientist Aspen seemed so excited about dinosaurs.

Cecil regrets his decision almost immediately. He forgets, sometimes, that the Scientists do not know when to be careful.

He makes an emergency broadcast from his kitchen. Cecil speaks and every radio in Night Vale speaks with his voice. 

Cecil does not like to use his abilities outside of the Station, but he has to make an exception to protect his Scientists. 

“Scientists,” he says, somewhat frantically, “I hope that you are aware that those scales are toxic to humans.”

They did not know. Aspen is hospitalized.

Cecil does his best not to eavesdrop on any conversations which take place in the seven hospitals in Night Vale-- it always struck him as rather rude-- but when he hears Carlos say his name, Cecil cannot ignore him.

Carlos still doesn’t quite understand what Cecil can do or who Cecil is, but he’s learning. Cecil will be patient. 

Cecil hears Carlos’ request and tucks it away for tomorrow’s show.

First, though, he goes to visit the Scientists. Cecil knows that Scientist Aspen is fascinated by the local flora and so he decides to give them one of his Martian Fly Traps.

Cecil sees everything. No matter what the Voice of Night Vale says, though, it’s never enough. 

The weight of his guilt sends cracks through the sidewalks as he walks. 

“It wasn’t your fault,” Carlos tells him, but Cecil knows differently.

Perfect, handsome, wonderful Carlos is kind, too. Cecil falls deeper in love with this man with the Perfect Hair with every breath.

“I see so much, Carlos,” Cecil says. It’s the truth. “I see everything. I should have seen this sooner.”

“Not your fault,” Carlos repeats.

Cecil tries to believe him.

Scientist Aspen makes a full recovery, and Cecil’s mood switches from concerned to vengeful.

(Scientist Aspen doesn’t even consider leaving Night Vale. Night Vale approves of Scientist Aspen; Night Vale will avenge them.)

“We do not disappear when-- or if-- we die,” Cecil says to his town. “Instead we merely scatter, becoming just another layer of atoms across the earth, becoming one with the desert sands forever. Welcome to Night Vale.”

Carlos and his Team of Scientists still don’t understand this, but Cecil is going to try to help them learn, because they are Night Vale’s now.

Cecil prepares himself as his theme song-- it always makes him happy to know that he has his own theme song-- plays. 

He is the Voice of Night Vale, but his power is not to be wielded frivolously. Cecil is, more or less, Night Vale, but Night Vale does not like being changed.

For Carlos, Cecil would use his position to warm up a cup of coffee.

Cecil clears his throat and lays out the charges against Sister Unperceivable. 

Night Vale is as prone to torch-wielding mobs of vigilantes as any other town, but residents do prefer to have a concrete justification for their actions. Night Vale’s one Normal Police Officer rarely manages to arrest anyone, but there’s always the possibility.

Cecil takes a deep breath. To avenge the violation of Scientist Aspen’s privacy, he must leave behind his guise of the Voice of Night Vale to become the VOICE.

“Sister Unperceivable is made of approximately twenty liters of argon gas. She lives at 762 Right Ventricle Drive. She will be sitting at the back right booth in Big Rico’s tonight.”

Cecil feels the ripples of action go through Night Vale. The residents begin to stir with furious purpose.

“And now,” Cecil says, the Voice once more, baring his slightly too sharp teeth in a vicious smile, “the community calendar.”

Sister Unperceivable is thrown into Stephen No-Last-Name’s mercury well by three triplets in hockey masks sixteen hours after Cecil becomes the VOICE. 

Carlos (wonderful, beautiful, perfect, kind Carlos) begins to tell Cecil about the science he and his Team conduct every night. Many of Carlos’ factoids confuse Cecil-- everyone knows that arsenic is the basis of life, not carbon-- but Cecil reports on Night Vale’s Scientists’ discoveries anyway.

Night Vale accepts the science factoids with good humor. Some of the children even believe the Scientists’ discoveries.

It’s a way for Carlos to talk to Cecil indirectly. Cecil will accept anything that Carlos is willing to give.

Cecil knows that Carlos is still learning what it means to live in Night Vale; Carlos is still learning what it means to love Night Vale.

Cecil will be patient. 

After all, he will be here forever, and he will make sure the Scientists will be too.

The Voice of Night Vale takes care of his own, and the Scientists are his.


End file.
